Emerson and Self-Culture [Paperback]

How do I live a good life, one that is deeply personal and sensitive to others? John T. Lysaker suggests that those who take this question seriously need to reexamine the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In philosophical reflections on topics such as genius, divinity, friendship, and reform, Lysaker explores self-culture or the attempt to remain true to one's deepest commitments. He argues that being true to ourselves requires recognition of our thoroughly dependent and relational nature. Lysaker guides readers from simple self-absorption toward a more fulfilling and responsive engagement with the world.

. . . this book is written in a profoundly Emersonian spirit, which means it is written in a spirit that refuses to back down from Emerson's provocations, nor does it proceed through attempts to domesticate his language. It represents a laudable attempt to think along with Emerson, and to recommend him as a companion with whom to think. . . . as a provocation to think along with him, it must be judged a success.November 17, 2008

John T. Lysaker is Associate Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Oregon. He is author of You Must Change Your Life: Poetry, Philosophy, and the Birth of Sense.

. . . complex, yet accessible to non-specialists.In the final analysis, Lysaker himself achieves in Emerson and Self-Culture and 'eloquence that can agitate.' Not only does he outline a series of nuanced approaches to self-culture in Emerson; like Emerson, he rhetorically provokes us towards greater possibilities for ourselves and our relations.Vol. 20.1 Spring 2009A detailed propagation of Emersonianism, lively and sometimes personal in its prose, satisfying in its open, unironic commitment to a great precursor, and praiseworthy in its address to a topic that extends far beyond academic matters.Proponents of standards reform in America's schools would benefit from the understanding of Emersonian individualism offered by John T. Lysaker in tlC7